michelle vargas's Photo

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Overview

  • 20 references 15 Confirmed & Positive
  • Fluent in English, German, Spanish
  • 32, Female
  • Member since 2014
  • kinder garten teacher
  • sociología, Filología clásica.
  • No hometown listed
  • Profile 100% complete

About Me

For the next two months (June-July), I'll be traveling through Europe, especially looking forward to exploring Eastern Europe. My journey is also an attempt to practice a slower, more mindful kind of travel—one that happens at the pace of conversations, shared meals, walks, and moments of everyday life. I'm especially drawn to projects, spaces, and people who are building community from the ground up. If you are involved in any initiative, I'd be more than happy to lend a hand, share ideas, or simply listen.

I'm an observer at heart, always curious about life. I studied sociology, but these days I learn more from plants, insects, and the quiet stories hidden in everyday life—especially in the cloud forest, where I’ve been working alongside children and local communities.

I'm in an ongoing process of deconstruction and reconstruction, in the spirit of Derrida—unraveling inherited ideas and trying to rebuild them with my hands, my senses, and the encounters along the way.

I carry with me a deep interest in human rights, especially the right to move, to migrate, to belong. I've always been inspired by how, as Simmel suggests, the figure of the stranger reveals both distances and unexpected proximities. I dream of encounters that help us soften fears, open doors, and gently challenge the invisible walls that, as Wendy Brown and Saskia Sassen remind us, still shape the ways we inhabit the world.

If you feel like opening your space to me, it would be a joy to share not just a roof, but also a conversation, a meal, or a quiet moment of your daily rhythm.

I love cooking (vegan experiments always welcome), reading things that shake me up, and writing things that remind me how little I know.

Always grateful for the chance to share stories, walks, meals, or simply a slice of life.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

On a two-month journey through Europe, seeking not just places but people, stories, and shared moments. I believe in slow, community-rooted travel—and I'd love to meet you, learn from you, or support any project close to your heart.

Also: I see Couchsurfing as a platform that still carries traces of what digital hospitality could be a space for genuine, non-monetary connections and cultural exchange beyond transactional logics. Although the platform itself has shifted over time toward more conventional platform capitalism models, I believe it still holds the potential to foster communities grounded in reciprocity, curiosity, and trust. I like to think it reminds us that technology doesn't have to be driven purely by profit, and perhaps could even reconnect with its more community oriented roots

Interests

I’m fascinated by the entanglement of nature, culture, and spirituality—a perspective inspired by posthumanist feminist thought that invites me to see life beyond human-centered boundaries. I find meaning in observing life’s cycles and rhythms, where plants, insects, and other beings are part of a shared, vibrant world.

My journey is about learning to listen deeply—to the earth, to stories, and to the silent wisdom that comes from interconnection rather than separation.

Alongside this, I’m passionate about community, human rights (especially migration and the right to belong), and I love cooking vegan food, reading transformative ideas, and writing as a way to reflect and explore.

  • environment
  • meditation
  • gardening
  • cycling
  • hiking
  • entomology
  • spirituality
  • alternative medicine
  • activism’s
  • abolitionist education

Music, Movies, and Books

I’m drawn to films that explore human experience with depth and honesty—often through political resistance, social critique, and poetic storytelling.

I appreciate the unique voices of filmmakers like Aki Kaurismäki, whose minimalist style captures resilience with dry humor; Naomi Kawase, whose work intimately connects nature and human emotions; Lynn Hershman, especially Teknolust, which explores identity and technology through a feminist lens; and Pasolini, whose powerful postwar Italian films challenge societal norms with raw intensity.

I also admire classics by Ingmar Bergman and Werner Herzog for their profound meditations on existence and society, as well as the cinematic mastery of Kurosawa and the atmospheric journeys crafted by Wim Wenders.

Kusturica’s vibrant and chaotic portrayals of Balkan life add another layer of raw storytelling that I deeply enjoy. Latin American cinema, with its rich cultural narratives and political depth, is also close to my heart.

If you have any recommendations or want to discuss films that challenge perspectives, I’d be happy to share a conversation over tea or a walk.

Music:
I love music that travels near and far, weaving through blues, punk, jazz, rap,boleros, cumbia, tango and experimental sounds. Listening, for me, is a way to discover new worlds and connect untold stories.

Artists that come to mind (and I can never stop adding more!): Alabaster DePlume, Otis Rush Dorothy Ashby, Rokia Traoré, Dorando, Buddy Miles, Roy Ayers, Baby Huey, Julie Lebrun, John Coltrane,Ali Farka Touré, any and all Afrofunk, Lee Moses, Leo Coltrane,Leonard Cohen, DakhaBrakha, Devendra Banhart, Diane Cluck, Josephine Foster, Soko, Angel Olsen,The Knife, Rejjie Snow, 3 Teens Kill 4, Amyl and the Sniffers, Bikini Kill, PJ Harvey, the cure, the smiths,Jessica Pratt, Nick Drake, Georges Brassens, Jean Leloup, Chuckamuck, Kraftwerk, Saada Bonaire, Habibi, Girlpool , Joy division, Hatis Noit,Reymour ,Eyedress ,Harry Dean Stanton, Karen Dalton,Parno Grastz, Cateno Veloso, Victo Jara, Silvio Rodriguez, Mercedes Sosa, Son de madera, Ampersan,Perota Chingo, Ignacio Maria Gomez, Bocaraca, Tamayo All Stars and so on XD

I'm eclectic and totally crazy for music.

Books:

I’m drawn to books that blur the edges between memoir, fiction, poetry, and resistance—texts that feel like open wounds and secret gardens at once.

Anaïs Nin taught me about the beauty of fragments and inner worlds, especially in Collages. Virginia Woolf’s Flush moves me with its tender, almost playful approach to life through other eyes ( dog's perspective)

Jenny Hval’s Rotten Paradise and Camila Sosa Villada’s Las Malas remind me how bodies can be territories of struggle, desire, and survival. Jean Genet’s Prisoner of Love opened windows into rebellion, love, and exile.

And Kathy Acker is a universe in herself—her raw, punk writing tears down narratives, bodies, and authorities with the same fierceness I admire in the streets and in literature.

Whenever I need to reconnect with the force of storytelling, I return to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, whose words feel like bridges across histories, continents, and silences.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I dont like the word amazing but i guess I have done some couple of things i feel proud of

Teach, Learn, Share

I can teach you how to make tortillas

What I Can Share with Hosts

I’d love to share vegan recipes (always happy to cook together), or simple pranayama and yoga exercises if you feel like moving or breathing together.

Mostly, I’m always open for a walk, hike, a conversation, or just a quiet moment of sharing daily life.

Countries I’ve Visited

Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Spain, Switzerland

Countries I’ve Lived In

Germany

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